My hands are red and calloused, and I have sore muscles underneath muscles underneath muscles.

It's too late to quit, but I don't feel ready. I can't go on stage, but I can't not do it.

My teacher says this is normal. She says every show comes together on the stage. This is an important and healthy part of the process. The anxiety can be a powerful tool, she says. It means you are present, not robotic. It means you care.

I do. But in a different way than I expected.

I still don't have a black top for the large-group number. My partner injured her knee. I keep spinning the wrong way. Why do I look so stupid when I walk across the stage? My tutu is too limp.

This is behind the scenes of a holiday dance show at The Dairy Center for the Arts in Boulder. I'd enjoyed plenty of these shows from the audience, slouched in my seat munching on a bag of gummy bears hidden in my purse (sorry, Dairy), completely oblivious to the amount of time, physical exhaustion and, in my case, self-doubt and tutu-panic that goes into providing this one hour of entertainment to the community.

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This is normal. This is normal. Right?

Our show is called "12 Dreams of Flight," an aerial dance loose interpretation of the "12 Days of Christmas." For "five golden rings," we've got five lyra hoops hanging from the ceiling. For "nine ladies dancing," it's me and three other women on hand bungees with red umbrellas.

Some of the interpretations are looser than others.

We've lost a lot of our dancers over the past few months, because of injuries or the time commitment required.

I'm amazed I've made it, dragging my kindergartner an hour away to rehearsals in Boulder, far past her bedtime. She comes in slippers and a sleeping bag. I bribe her with ice cream and Netflix, and chase my mommy guilt with the hopes that seeing strong women doing these unusual things will subliminally teach her she is strong and boundless, too. I want her to keep thinking I'm a superhero, even though today, I need the saving.

Seriously, what am I doing here?

I'm not a professional dancer. I'm barely a dancer — at least next to the professional members of Frequent Flyers, the aerial dance school that is running this show.

I casually do aerial dance for fun and fitness on the weekends. I first discovered it as a reporter, when I featured an aerial silks class as the Workout of the Week.

"I feel like I've been searching all my life for the way aerial silks makes me feel. It's equally as fun as challenging, and in that, it's so fulfilling," I wrote.

Around my 18-months mark, I decided to do something ridiculous. I tried out for the Adult Student Company. I was comically underqualified, but I figured it'd give me a jolt of motivation to keep pushing harder.

The real jolt came when I got into the company.

Further jolts came with the choreography process. Teachers focused on group bonding, improv, feeling the energy, expressing a story — not technique, no eight-counts. The routine oddly morphed together, sort of like a stream of consciousness might unfold into an abstract painting, long before we had selected music.

The process was both beautiful, meaningful and scary.

I thrive on details and planning. So when my teacher told me to do a solo on the umbrella apparatus ("Just feel it. Do whatever you want"), I wanted to join my daughter in her sleeping bag. Headfirst.

But as I pushed through my own hang-ups, I found a poignancy in the discomfort. The dance was an authentic and original creation from the energy and interactions of a group of relative strangers. It was nothing like I expected, but then, it was nothing that had ever existed before. It had sharp edges that needed polishing, yet it was ours.

My pride in that keeps trying to placate my fears.

I have so many sharp edges. God, please no one watch me. This is normal. Anxiety means you care.

I do care. Not about my ability (or inability) to knee-hang off the handle of the weird metal umbrella. Not about impressing the audience. Not about whether my red tutu is adequately flouncy to accentuate the playfulness of the hand bungees (which it is most certainly not).

Those worries are just empty distractions.

Now, just days from opening night, all I can think about is the other dancers. I want to do my best so I don't take away from their hard work. I don't want to let them down. I want them to know how grateful I am that they welcomed me, inexperience and all, even with my sudden and baffling inability to walk across the stage.

I am anxious because I care about the people on stage next to me. Damn that team-building.

It's our final rehearsal, before the dress rehearsals start. I'm covered in sweat and packing up my daughter's sleeping bag in the dressing room. A photographer visited tonight, and across the room, I hear her quietly confess, "That looks like a lot of fun. Maybe I should try it."

"You wouldn't be the first journalist to say that," I hear someone respond.

My final jolt. I burst out laughing, clutching a sleeping bag in one hand and a tutu in the other.

And my fears vanish. Just like that. They absorb into perspective of an outsider, where the details are irrelevant and the fun is the fuel.

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